Don't Walk Softly Just Carry a Big Stick
by ibshafer
Summary: semi-sequel to "Landslide"; now that Santana and Dave are allies, what's next for them?  Dave, Santana, and a cast of hundreds...


**Story: **Don't Walk Softly (Just Carry a Big Stick)

**Fandom: **Glee  
**Author:** ibshafer  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Character:** Santana, Dave (hints of Kurtofsky and Brittana)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own these people, they own themselves and are just nice enough to let me spin them around the page now and then.

**Summary: **semi-sequel to "Landslide" in which Santana finds an ally in an unlikely person…

**Warning:** Up to 2x15

**A/N****:** Sorry if this is weak – a story without dialogue or narrative? – but I got this cool idea for how things _could _progress after "Landslide" and I went with it. Sorry if it's not up to my usual standards – read it for the cool idea of it, not the writing. _Thx! – ibs_

Don't Walk Softly (Just Carry a Big Stick)

_~ ibshafer_

In the beginning, it was just the two of them and they weren't having meetings, they were just having lunch.

She'd been searching for a place to eat a) to get away from having to see her "girlfriend" being all touchy-feely with the wheel chair kid and b) to escape the crap she was getting from the Pack of Assholes (her name for the jocks that were hounding her, a group he had, up until very recently, been a part of). Once they'd found out she'd been batting for the other team, her _own _team, well, some were weirded out – some of these dudes had been with her once or twice (…er, _all_ of them?) – and some were, well, what's the opposite of weirded out? A few even tried to recruit her for threesomes with their girlfriends. (_'I's nobody's marital aid, yo,' _she'd say, disgusted.)

So, basically, the caf and the picnic tables outside were like her no-fly zone and he couldn't blame her for that. They'd become his, as well.

For a while now, he'd been pretty fed up with the Work, as Az and Taylor liked to call it. The "Work" was the job of keeping McKinley's downtrodden…downtrodden. They roamed the halls keeping people in line, led by Azimio, of course, and Dave, well, he was never one to swim against the current, but after they'd targeted her that time and she'd fought back, fought like a _tiger_, and they'd _still_ dumped that frozen crap on her head, well, he'd felt not just like shit, he'd felt _disloyal_ and not to his so-called friends. That had surprised him.

Because now that Hummel was gone, and the accompanying dull roar and confusing, constant hard-on, had gone with him, Dave could actually think straight, which was not only funny from a pun standpoint, but funny because being able to think clearly was how he had finally come to accept who he was – _that he was gay_. It took Hummel going away for him to be able to accept that he wanted him.

It was kind of like the warnings they'd given him last year in the recovery room after he'd had that thing removed from his scalp. Because of the anesthetic he'd been under his judgment would be impaired, so they'd said he shouldn't drive a car or make any major decisions. (He'd thought it was hilarious at the time…) In this case, the drug was Hummel and he'd had _him_ in his system all this time, not general anesthetic.

Well, his judgment was no longer impaired…and he knew two things for sure:

_He was gay._

_He was in love with Kurt Hummel._

Oh, make that _three_ things:

He'd had _enough _of treating other people like shit because someone he was afraid of crossing _told_ him he had to.

_Enough._

Seeing how brave she'd been, that's what had done it for him.

But back then, in the beginning with her, _it was just lunch…_

She'd wandered into the same empty classroom he was eating his lunch in – that dusty one on the 3rd floor that used to be an art room or something and had easels everywhere (it had been abandoned since they'd restored that big studio downstairs) – and before he knew it, they were eating lunch together every day.

They didn't start out talking about…about that thing they had in common, at first it was classes and gossip and movies and shit (they were both into the Evil Dead movies, which he thought, coming from her, was just hilarious), but it wasn't long before she asked him about Kurt. He'd kicked himself, hard, realizing that he probably _had _been a little obvious that night after Homecoming when she'd hooked up with him under the bleachers, but she wasn't laughing at him or anything, so…_so he told her_. _Everything_. And she was surprised, but surprisingly cool about it, too. In the past, she would have been the _last _person he would have told something secret to, but he just knew she wasn't going to spread this. They had that gay solidarity thing going on.

And that's how it started.

He talked about Kurt.

She talked about Brittany.

And together, they talked about the things they were going through, the things that scared them _about_ what they were going through, and then, they talked about the things they hoped for. (For now, Kurt and Britt…)

Part of what Dave talked about was his need to become a better person, to prove to Kurt he was worthy of him, to be _strong _like him, and how to do that, he had to stop living this lie of a life; he had to stop pretending to be someone that he wasn't.

Much as he knew it would be awful he knew he had to do it.

_Dave had to come Out. _

And, shit, it _would _be awful. He would have to fight for himself every day, fight against people he used to think were his friends, but who, it turns out, really, really weren't. But she promised to be there for him, to fight _with_ him, saying they had to stand together, and that sort of made it all right, like he was almost looking _forward _to the fight, because the two of them _would _be fierce together, fighting against the assholes together. (_And they were_.)

From that simple promise, it wasn't long before they each came to the realization that they aren't the only ones at McKinley in need of protection from the Pack, that, in fact, as the Fury and the Fierce (he gave her that name, she _loved _it), they actually might be _less _in need of protection that other kids at school.

That was probably about the time those "others" started showing up in their lunch spot, timidly walking past the door, only to come back and look forlornly in, until one of them invited them inside. The first was this shy kid he'd often suspected was gay, and then this artist chick he'd heard rumors about. At first, they just came to eat with them, saying they'd heard this was a place where people didn't give you shit, but eventually, as they all got to talking, it became clear they were looking for more than just some place to hang out. And they were both kind of cool with that, _proud_ in fact. That people recognized them as two people who could stand up to the bullies and win, not just with force, but with mental might. (She helped a lot with that – she was _wicked_smart.)

After a while, it was more than just McKinley's few gay kids; the geeks and the nerds and the drama-ramas came to them, as well, and while they each had a moment's digression, realizing they were sitting in a room of the lame-ass contingent of the school, they actually began to feel kind of protective of them. It was cool. Some of the glee kids came in this later wave of people, though he knew that Frankenteen had been hovering around the classroom for at least a week before he finally got the others to come in with him. That they were all there, supporting him, and her, of course, made Dave really, really proud. And he had a moment where he hoped that Kurt's step was taking this news back to him, that Kurt knew what Dave was doing, because whenever they stepped in and stopped a dumpster dunking or made some losers drink their own Slushies for a change, _he thought about Kurt_. He thought about how he'd failed him. He thought about how he wanted to make up for that if he could.

Eventually, what started out as lunch, turned into meetings, meetings where they'd talk about scheduling patrols of the halls during their free periods – of the hallways, the lunch room, the locker room – and though they rarely had to resort to actual force, it was the attitude and the promise of it that got their message across.

The jocks and other asshats were put on warning:

Fuck with _any_one at McKinley and face their wrath.

And it worked, mainly because the jocks and the asshats weren't used to such organized, and fearless resistance, particularly from one of their _"own."_

Before they knew it, their lunches that had turned into meetings became something _more_; sanctioned and fully supported by Mr. Shue, Coaches Sylvester and Beiste, Mrs. Pillsbury-Howe, Principal Figgins, and even the School Board.

William McKinley High had its very first Gay Straight Student Alliance.

That was the year everything changed at McKinley, the year the _students_ instituted a zero-tolerance policy for bullying.

And on a night when Figgins and the School Board had thrown them a party to celebrate the school's first incident free month, that's when he saw him.

_Kurt Hummel._

He'd arrived with his step brother and been immediately engulfed by his glee friends and Dave, well, he was just happy that Kurt had wanted to be there with everyone else, and that he felt comfortable being at something he knew Dave was such a big part of. When Kurt had looked up and smiled a tiny smile at him, Dave felt his heart _drop_ into his belly. He smiled back, his cheeks burning, and then he'd busied himself helping his co-chair with something, but for the rest of the night, he could feel Kurt's eyes on him and that's when he knew it, that redemption wasn't just a pipedream; _it was possible._

They'd made that happen, the _two_ of them, and watching her now with Brittany, holding hands and looking very pleased with herself, he knew she believed it, too.

fini

4


End file.
